RDP Wednesday: SCINTILLATE 

This year when I put up my tree, I had a plan- a vision I was pretty excited about it.

I was going for 1940’s vintage tree because I liked the warm colors and the funny shapes that some of the glass ornaments were crafted into. Also the Santas were kind of deranged looking. They had those pointy beards and little beady black eyes.

I was ready to decorate.

So I was in the middle of choosing some new ornaments ( on line of course ) to add to my older collection when my dog Hamish Macbeth started bringing me some of his toys to play with. When I looked at the stash he had left near my chair I saw his plushie fish, crab, seahorse  ( I call it his Sea Pony and no I don’t know why ) and a clam.

I put out a toe and made the clam squeak and then it came to me in a flash- a Sea themed tree, how great would that be?

I changed my plans.

I surfed around and before I knew it I had found the perfect set of ornaments. They were blue and silver. There were clams trimmed with pearls and Seahorses ( sorry, Seaponies ), there were fish, starfish  and even a sparkly whale.

And then out of nowhere I decided to add an ornament with a bees.

In addition to that, I decided to use my Krampus tree topper ( well, he wasn’t supposed to be a tree topper, he just ends up there ) and hey while I was going off the rails I  decided I would put up my Wolf ornament too.

It all made sense at the time.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Photo A.M. Moscoso

A few days after I put my tree up I was going  add a picture of it to a Christmas Memories page I like to visit. I was pretty excited about that because it’s a fun page.

 But I realized  as I looked at those lovely trees that people had decorated with love and talent and vision, that I may have had a vision too – with my Sea theme but what I ended up with was a 1970’s truck stop waitress look so I named my tree Opal May.

Opal May seemed to be a great name for a 1970’s truck stop waitress.

And no,  I didn’t post my tree picture. I mean, well, I just didn’t.

I looked at the picture I was going to post  and saw that my tree was crooked and I had forgotten to add a string of blue lights, you know because it would have made Opal May really sparkle. The idea I had for my lights was stars twinkling on the ocean at night feeling. Lord. What was I thinking?

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Yeah. It was a mess.

But my dog loves that tree. He keeps leaving his toys around it and he wasn’t whizzed on it once. He has wagged his tail when he was next to the tree and sent some of the baubles flying across the room but I put the ‘Labrador tail friendly’ ornaments on the lower branches so that’s okay.

Poor Opal May.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my tree and what I probably like the most about it is that it isn’t perfect and it has a good story.

I just wish it wasn’t titled to the side because it looks like it’s trying to run out the sliding glass doors and it’s hard to not take that personally.

Photo A.M. Moscoso